Cumberland Maryland to Washington D.C. on the C&O Canal Trail

Friday May 25^th

We tried to sleep in but the train tracks very close to our hotel window and there were a lots of trains early in the morning.  We walked down the street and ate breakfast at the Queen City Creamery.  They also make their own ice cream!  We had eggs, bacon, fruit and a scone.  It was nice to take out time and read the local paper.  There is a huge bluegrass festival just out of town this weekend called Delfest.  We thought about going but decided we didn’t really want to contend with 12,000 people!  Lots of people at the hotel are either her to bike or for the music.  

We took a walk after breakfast and found the C & O Canal trail which is going to be the path for the second half of our journey.  We went to the Visitors Center for maps and toured the Canal Exhibit.  It was very informative.  I am getting more excited about riding the trail after learning more about the history of the Canal.  My father has ridden this part before 12 years ago with my stepmother.  He is looking forward to riding it too.  Then we walked around the Canal area and downtown for a while.  We walked across the river and up the hill to an art museum and enjoy a show by a local watercolor painter. There were lots of paintings of local scenes around the canals and boats and the mountains.  

We did a loop around that end of town and found our way back to the Queen City Creamery for a cup of their homemade ice cream.  I had something chocolate with malted milk balls and it was very good.   The temperature was getting hot so we went back to the hotel for a nap and to write postcards.  My father had broken a brake cable the day before so we put on the spare I was carrying.  We had to borrow a pair of wire cutters from the hotel.  Later we walked down the central pedestrian street to hear the free music.  At one end a country band was setting up so we walked to the other end where the school jazz band was playing some fine tunes.  

We decided to have dinner at the Crabby Pig down by the canal.  And we enjoyed some good fish and ribs.  Then walked back through the music and listened to a local rock band play Squeezebox by The Who.  Then I had a beer at the local pub and walked back to the room.  It was really nice not to have to ride today, especially in the heat of the afternoon.  Unfortunately they don’t have the hotel pool ready just yet.  An evening swim would have been just the ticket! 

Saturday May 26

We are up fairly early and head down to the hotel restaurant for brekkie but it’s full so we walk over to the Creamery but it’s closed.  We go back to the hotel and our favorite receptionist tells us the Crabby Pig is open.  She works there too.  So we pack up or bikes and ride there.  We have eggs bacon and potatoes and lots of tea and water.  We jump on our bikes and we are off down the C & O Canal Trail!  The sky is clear and soon we have the canal on our left and the Potomac River on the right.  The trail is not quite as well groomed as Allegheny but it’s nice and shady.  

We encounter our first mud puddles but they are not too bad.  Henry warned us about them at the top of the mountain.  The hot dry weather has dried them up some.  We are riding downhill from about 688 feet down to sea level.  Downhill al the way!  Cool!  We just cruise along passing lots of locks an an occasional road to a town.  The locks are very cool.  They are a very ingenious way to move boats and and down stream.  They are sturdy and easy to operate.  It’s very cool to see them up close.  Some of the canal still has water in it and some of the locks are closed and some open.  

At lunch time we leave the trail on the recommendation of our next innkeeper and ride a half mile down the highway to Paw Paw, West Virginia and have lunch at the Gas Station Deli.  There is a big car show going on and lots of people around.  We order ham n cheese subs and cottage cheese then we talk the lady into selling us some english muffins and cheese to bolster our thin food supplies.  As we are having lunch the car show has a car parade outside our window.  So we have lunch and a show.  

Then we bicycle back to the trail and right around the corner we come to the Paw Paw Tunnel.  It’s 3,118 ft long and built at much cost with about 5 million bricks.  There is a ranger standing at the entrance who encourages us to walk our bikes through and gives some history while we are digging out of lights.  I was glad to have a head light and a bike light as there are no lights in the 2/3 of a mile long tunnel.  It got pretty dark in the middle and you can sense the canal just over the wooden railing to your left and hear lots of water dripping and running down through the weep holes in the roof of the tunnel.  The wooden railing of worn from years of towropes dragging over it and the trail surface was pretty rough with many puddles. It seemed like we walk forever until finally we emerged into the light at the other end.  

We mounted up and rode the last 8 miles to Little Orleans to complete our day of 43 miles.  We were unsure whether Little Orleans was up the road from the 15 Mile Campground.  We rode an extra mile down the trail and turned around and rode back.  Then we went up the hill and through a short tunnel to Little Orleans and Bill’s bar.  They told us our Little Orleans Inn was to the left, down the hill, over the bridge, left again and up the hill.  Finally we made it!  And there was Steve and his dog Brandy to greet us.  We cleaned up and rested then Steve drove us back to Bill’s where we waited forever to served some pretty unappetizing fried chicken and onion rings.  Al least the beer was cold!  We drove back to the Inn and Steve set us up to watch a video about the history of the Canal.  It was interesting and then we read until bedtime.

Sunday May 27

We slept in a bit and Steve served us great French toast made on his homemade bread with fat sausages.  It was really tasty.  We were back in our room and decided that we liked this place so much that we will take our day off here instead of taking 2 nights in Hancock.  Steve was amenable to that.  Then he drove us up the mountain to an overlook were we could see the whole 6 mile loop of river that cutting the Paw Paw tunnel eliminated on the C & O Canal.  

Back at the Inn I found a copy of the book Under the Tuscan Sun last night and spent most of the morning reading it.  We had lunch on the porch and walked down the road for a swim in the creek.  It was much warmed than I expected it to be.  We swam in a pool next to the road with a series of culverts moving the water under the road.  We found that we could sit in the gush from the culverts and get a water massage.  It was wonderful.  We walked back up the hill and read some more.  I am really enjoying Under the Tuscan Sun.  It talk a lot about my favorite subject.  Food!  

Then Steve offered to drive us an another guest Martin to another restaurant for dinner.  We drove to Berkeley Springs, WV and ate at Tari’s Café.  I had some tasty crab soup and roasted eggplant on pasta.  Very nice.  It started to rain very hard while we were dining.  Steve insisted on running to get the van and picking us up.  The rain slowed down quite a bit by the time her returned.  But it continued to rain through the night, very hard at times, with lots of lightning.  We read and listened to the rain on the roof until we slept.

Monday May 28

Steve served eggs, underdone potatoes and bacon this morning.  But the rail has stopped so we load up and ride 10 miles into Hancock.  We decided to ride on the asphalt trail that runs parallel to the trail here because of all the rain.  It was strange being on the hard of the Western Maryland Rail Trail, but it had very informative signs and got us into Hancock very quickly.  

We ask a local guy how to get to our hotel and rode up to the Comfort Inn on the hill and showered then we ate or usual lunch.  We biked down the hill to see if the Hancock History Museum was open.  It wasn’t, so we crossed the street to Weaver’s Restaurant and Bakery and had a dish of orange sherbet.  We rode back to the hotel for a nap.  Then we rode back to Weaver’s again for a dinner.  I had a piece of their homemade caramel apple pie with vanilla ice cream.  It was really tasty.  There is almost nothing as pleasing as really good pie!  Then back to our hotel for the night.

Tuesday May 29

The morning was warm when we started and it was predicted to get hot.  This may be our first hot riding day.  We continued down the paved WMRT from yesterday until it ended in a parking lot with no instructions on how to get back to the C&O Trail.  Nice!   We decided to ride down the auto road to the entrance to Fort Fredrick State Park.  We should be able to find the C&O Trail there.  We rode a couple of miles and some very steep hills and finally turned into Fort Fredrick.  I took a tour of the fort.  It was pretty basic and I was the only visitor so far that day.  The people in costume were very informative and helpful.  

About an hour later we were back on the C & O Trail.  It feels good to be back on it.  I like the gravel and don’t mind dodging the occasional mud hole and fallen branch.  It’s very pretty, even thought there isn’t much water in the old canal bed.  The Potomac River on our right is very pretty and there are people in boats and kayaks floating down fishing.  It’s fun to listen to them laughing and calling to each other as we spin by.  Soon we have ridden the 25 miles to Sharpesburg and the weather hasn’t gotten to hot.  There are afternoon thundershowers predicted but we are ahead of them so far.  

I use my phone GPS to locate the Red Roof Inn.  It’s a mile away from the towpath along the auto road over rolling hills.  We clean up and are resting while we decide where to eat dinner when we hear a big clap of thunder and the rain come down in buckets.  After some debate we call the Chinese restuarant across the street but they don’t deliver.  We find a pizza hut in the next town and order a large ham and mushroom pie.  Forty minutes and they will have it at our door.  They are pretty close.  The rain has stopped but it’s still nice not to have to go out find dinner.  We watch Tv and read until bed time.

Wed. May 30^th

Today we are riding 22 miles down to Sharpesburg, MD which is the site of Antietam which was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.  There were about 23,000 casualties, missing dead and wounded from both sides.  The sky is clear as we ride back down the road and onto the trail.  Soon we are riding through puddles and mud and soon my feet are wet, but I am enjoying it.  The air clear after the storm and everything is green and lush.  By lunchtime we arrive at Sharpesburg and ride up and up and then down and up again and finally we find the Antietam Guest House and no one is home.  We leave a message and sit on the front porch and eat our lunch.  We haven’t heard back yet but discover the front door is unlocked so we go in and find the phone number for Antietam National Park.  It’s only a mile up the road so we dump our packs in the hall and ride up to the visitor’s center.  

They have a great movie and then we get a map and bike about halfway around the guided tour.  It’s a fascinating and somber place.  It’s has been carefully maintained so it looks like ti would have looked during the battle.   We go back to the visitor’s center and tour the exhibits and then bike back to our rooms and the hostess has returned.  We get the tour and the lowdown on restaurants and I settle in front of the TV to check the weather.  It looks pretty good for tomorrow but not so good for the rest of the week. A little later we walk down the street to and have a beer and some good jambalaya for dinner.  We walk around the corner to a shop that makes it’s own ice cream for dessert.  Then I walk around to find the post office so I cam mail some postcards.

A little more TV, and soon I am yawning so I look through the bookcase, but most the books are bible or history oriented.  I find an Amish cookbook and head up to my room.  We have separate rooms tonight and it’s a real luxury.  I read Amish recipes until my eyelids get heavy and then dream of Amish feasts!  God night.

Thursday May 31

We have cereal, fruit and tea for breakfast and then walk a few blocks in search of a Mennonite Bakery.  After asking for directions we find it and it smells great inside.  The shop, is staffed by three or four women dressed in the long skirts and the hair bonnets of the Mennonite tradition.  We each order a pastry and walk back to our rooms and eat them with another cup of tea.  They are delicious!   

We tidy up the kitchen, load our bikes and ride up and down the hills and back to the trail.  It’s a fine morning and some of the mud has dried up on the towpath.  Soon we come to section of the trail that is in bad condition and we have to take a six mile detour onto auto roads.  We ride up the hill between a red barn and a beautiful stone house, which looks well kept but empty.  We ride around the barn and down the driveway.  A Park service truck is pulling in and they stop for us, so I ask them about the house.  They reply that the Park Service now owns it and the have repaired the outside but it’s empty and they will just let the inside rot away.  It’s too bad as it’s a wonderful structure.  We say goodbye and pedal out onto the auto road.   

We ride along on country roads over rolling hills with almost no cars, then we go around a corner and start up a steep hill.  I pass my father and ride to the top and wait and wait.  Finally I go walk back down.  He has bike flipped over and is working on something.  I walk to the bottom and he mis-shifted and has jammed his chain badly on the rear wheel behind the chain rings.  We try to pull the chain free but it’s stuck and a few cars whizz by so I carry the bike across the street to a driveway where we are on flat ground and out of traffic.  We try everything we can devise to free the chain but we can’t get much leverage with the wheel on the bike, but can’t take it off because of the jammed chain.  Finally I get out my chain breaker and take a link out of the chain and we are able to unthread the chain and take it and the wheel off the bike.  Then we both stand on the tire and by pulling on both ends of the chain we are finally able to yank it back out.  I check and there is no damage to the chain or the gear teeth.  So we put the tire back on, rethread the chain and put the link back on.  We run the pedals and it feels good.  

As we are cleaning up a young guy comes out the house attached to the driveway and comes over to see if we need help.  Turns out he is from Dade City, Florida but recently bought this house.  We have a nice conversation and then we are off up the hill again.  We make it back to the trail without any trouble and it’s great to be away from cars again.  It really is wonderful to ride with out having to think about cars other than when we cross the occasional road.  We pin on down to trail and about lunchtime we find ourselves across the river from Harper’s Ferry where we are spending the night.  In order to get across the river we have to carry our bikes and gear up a winding metal staircase to the railroad bridge above our heads.  We remove our bike bags and carry our bags up.  Then go back down for our bikes.  We reload and ride across.  We are now also on the Appalachain Hiking Trail which runs from Maine to Georgia.  

We ride across the bridge which shared with an active railroad track but divided by a fence.  We can see some kayakers taking a break on an island in the middle of the river after running white water above.  We wind down the other end of the bridge and we are in the historic section of Harper’s Ferry which is mostly a National Park.  Because this is where John Brown raided the armory for weapons and tried to start an uprising to abolish slavery in our country.  We ride up the cobblestone street to our hotel The Towns Inn.  We are early but we ask if we can get into our room.  We have to wait on the proch for a while but it is pleasant in the breeze.  The sky is a perfect blue and it’s warm with a gentle breeze to keep us cool.  We are shown to our room which has bunk beds and the bathrooms and showers are one floor down.  I look and all the rooms are set-up this way.   Kind of an odd set-up!  

We clean-up and go across the street to a pub for lunch.  We sit on the porch looking over the river at the mountains and enjoy a local craft beer and a sandwich.  We decide to tour the historic district after lunch we walk back down the hill and onto the bus that goes up the hill.  We get there only to discover that it’s just a visitor’s center and parking lots!  We buy postcards and get back on the bus down the hill.  We tour a lot of the houses which are set up with exhibits about the history of the town, the construction of the railroad, the canal, the making of weapons and John Brown and his raid.  It’s all very interesting and we continue viewing until we have seen most of the exhibits including on about how Merriweather Lewis gathered his supplies here before meeting with Clark to find the Northwest Passage and explore the Pacific Northwest.  Very interesting place with lots of history.  

We walk up the street for ice cream and then go back to our hotel and read until dinner.  We walk next door to the restaurant attached to the hotel and sit in the courtyard.  We have a nice conversation with a young couple who came up from Washington to go rafting.  They had a great time on the river.  She works for FEMA so we talked about that.  Then they left and we enjoyed our dinner and then went for a walk up the hill.  This is a very pretty town with lots of historic buildings and wonderful architecture.  We find a beautiful catholic church.  And walk up a path and find ourselves at Jefferson Rock.  We share it with a young couple as the sun is setting.  You can see a long way up the Shenandoah Valley.  The Shenandoah River connects with the Potomac River at Harper’s Ferry.   It’s a great view with the sun setting.  We walk further up the path to a local cemetery.  Then back down past the remains of an old church as the lightning bugs are beginning to flash.  

I decide to walk up the hill and soon realize that there are no more pubs open so I return to the Town’s Inn and have a glass or porter and talk with some other bicyclists.  The weather forecast is for storms beginning in the afternoon possibly severe and continuing over night.   We are only riding 10 miles to tomorrow but have to ride the final 50 miles of our trip on Saturday.  Some of the others are riding 50 miles tomorrow.  I say good night and take a hot shower and attempt to crawl into the upper bunk in the dark.  There is not much headroom and a railing but finally I wiggle in.  There is no light up here so I read by headlamp for a while and the doze off.  It’s been a really terrific day!

Let’s hope the weather doesn’t get to severe for the final days of our ride!

Friday June 1st

Well it’ looks very stormy today.  We have eggs and bacon next door for breakfast and look at the weather forecast.  Rain predicted for the day and severe storms for the afternoon and evening, but clear and no rain tomorrow.  So we decide to stick to our plan.  So we load up and ride five miles down the road to Brunswick, MD where there are a few restaurants.  We are staying in a Lockkeeper’s house tonight with no water or electricity.  It’s five more miles down the trail.  

We have decided to hang around town for a while and then order a couple of hot calzones to take to the lockhouse for dinner since we have to way to cook anything.  The weather is holding off so far so we walk around town and find our way to Beans in the Belfry which is an old church that has been converted into a coffeeshop.  It’s very funky and comfortable.  We order tea and settle into comfy chair with the newspaper and spend a couple of hours reading. We ask the owners if there is a newsstand nearby where I can get a magazine as we are going to be in a lockhouse for the night.  They tell I me can just take a book from their shelves.  I find one of stories from Roald Dahl’s childhood (he wrote  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).  Then we walk down to the pizza shop but it’s still closed.  We ask at the firehouse across the street and are informed that it will open soon.  We walk down to the visitors center and tour their canal museum.  It’s small but very well designed. 

 Then we walk back to the restaurant and they are just unlocking the door.  It’s just about noon and we order a calzone and a Stromboli and sit down while they bake them.  We get them to wrap them up well and bag them for us and we walk back to our bikes as the sky is getting dark in the west.  We load the food and start the five miles to the Lock house.  Two miles down we begin to hear the patter of raindrops.  We get out our raincoats and speed the remaining three miles.   

The rain is just getting started and we get our gear onto the porch just before the clouds cut loose and the rain comes pouring down.  We look through our information but we can’t find the combination to the key lockbox.  There is a phone number on a sign so I get phone out and call it.  There are s series of phone mailboxes to leave messages about the different lockhouses, so I leave a message in the right mailbox and hang up.  I notice that I have a voice mail so I call it and the message is from the Park Service that they emailed the wrong code and here is the correct code for the lock box.  What good timing!  I get the key out erase the message and unlock the door.  We are in!  So I leave another message on the Park Service voicemail that we are in.  It’s railing very hard and the sky is very dark.  We open some of the shutters so have some light and settle in.  We still need a flashlight at the table to see what we are eating because of the dark clouds.  We each eat half of our hot meal and have some dried fruit.  We have to lockhouse ourselves tonight and there are two bedrooms upstairs.  I choose the front room and pull out my sheet, make the bed and settle in with my book and flashlight to read and listen to the rain pounding on the roof.  It’s wonderful to be warm and dry in a 200 year old wood and stone house between the Potomac River and the Canal with the lightning booming and the rain pouring on the roof!  

I take a long nap and the go downstairs.  It’s still raining hard so I settle into a rocking chair.  And we watch the rain and the trains on the tracks on the other side of the canal.  For at least an hour there is freight train on the siding while commuter trains from Washington D. C. rush by.  We relax and read until there is too little light to see.  Then we eat our dinner of cold calzone and peanut butter bagels by flashlight and head back to bed to read.  It’s been an interesting day.  Once again I fall asleep to the sound of trains.

Saturday June 2

We went to sleep early and are up with first light and the early trains.  The rain has stopped and the air feels very clear.  We have our PB, Cheese and Bagel Breakfast, use the Port-o-let outside, sweep out the Lockhouse as instructed and at 7:30 we begin our final day on the C&O Canal Trail.  Soon we are dodging puddles and dripping trees.  But the sun comes out the sky is blue and we splash through puddles and slide around in the mud but keep a steady pace down the trail.  I send a text to friends from St. Petersburg who are visiting Washington that we will be riding into town this afternoon. 

 We stop to look at the beautiful Monocacy Aqueduct.  It’s a stone bridge that carried the C&O Canal over the Monocacy River.  It is a lovely structure and the Monocacy and Potomac Rivers are running high and muddy from all the rain last night.  We ride on 35 miles to Falling Waters Park where the C&O skirts some very rough waterfalls on the Potomac River.  We stop and take a well deserved break.  We eat lunch from our packs and watch tourists load on a replica canal boat that was built in Albany. NY where I used to live.  Then we walk out to see the falls.  They are tremendous with lots of water thundering through many chasms and channels and lots of blue herons out fishing for lunch.  

We walk back and load up to the pedal the final 15 miles and around the corner is another detour around trail repair.  Another couple of staircases to climb.  This time there is a board running up one side of the staircases so I am able to push the bikes up the stairs with out taking off the packs.  We ride along and old asphalt road that is very old and rough.  This is continues for a few mile until my butt is sore from bouncing.  Then there are more stairs down.  I run the bikes down and we are back on the Towpath.  The trail is much dryer here be we have to ride slower because there are lots of walkers and other bicyclists.  There are also lots of kayakers in the canal and on the river.  We work our way down into the Washington. 

We are just past lock number one when I see my friends Peter Belmont and Laurie Macdonald on bikes headed our direction.  They have come to ride the final miles of out trip with us!  IT’S great see them!  We exchange hugs and talk about the ride for a few minutes and then ride on to the Francis Scott Key Bridge.  Peter takes our picture and we leave the trail with plans to meet them later and ride over the bridge and on the Streets of Arlington about half a mile to The Inn of Rosslyn and 51 miles later our ride is done!   The clerk at the Inn takes our picture and gives our room keys and we clean the mud off our bikes, put them in our room and relax for a while.  Then we walk up the hill and settle into a sidewalk table at Red Hot and Blue Barbeque for a dinner of pulled pork and their own brew.  I am going to meet Peter and Laurie later so I have a bowl of Brunswick Stew.  The sky is blue and clean and the temperature is dropping so we walk back to our hotel and relax.  

A little after 8 pm Peter and Laurie call me and I ride back across the Key bridge and into Georgetown to meet them at their hotel for a drink.  I have to ride through the traffic snarl and throngs of people of the Friday night bar scene.  It’s very strange and a little unsettling after the peaceful ride on the bike trails.  I arrive alive and set on the steps for a few minutes until I see them coming up the sidewalk.  We walk into the Tabard Inn and it’s a very cozy place with a fireplace and a nice restaurant.  I can see whey Laurie likes staying here.  We settle on stools at the bar and order some microbrew beer and hummus and chips.  We spend a couple of hours talking about bike trips and our ride then I say my goodbyes and ride back through the wildness and traffic of Georgetown and over the Key bridge to our Inn.  I take a quick shower and fall exhausted into bed.  The ride is done!  What great ride!  Good night.

Sunday June 3^rd

We have bagels and tea and donuts for breakfast and since the Inn doesn’t have an airport shuttle on the weekends my father walk off towards the subway with a map from the front desk.  I fold up my bike and get my gear all packed and watch a documentary about the making of the movie Animal House.  It’s a funny film.  A couple of hours go by and my father has not returned with the rental car.  I begin to move all out gear to the front hall and outside.  Another half hour goes by and finally he rolls up in a midsize rental.  We squeeze one folded bike into trunk.  It just barely fits!  And the other on the back seat with garbage bags to keep the upholstery clean.  The rest of gear goes in the trunk.  

We check the room and I set us a course for Kentuck Knob which another Frank Lloyd Wright House on the way to where my van is parked.  We miss a couple of turns but finally find our way to the Interstate and off we go.  We stop in Cumberland and have lunch at the Crabby Pig again.  We see our friend from the hotel and say hello.  Then we drive to Kentuck Knob and enjoy and ice cream and then the house tour.  It’s different from Fallingwater but still very lovely and a fascinating design.  We tour the sculptures on the ground and I see my first Andy Goldsworthy work live.  

Then we drive on the Boston, PA and get there just before my GPS runs out of battery as the rain starts.  We decide to drive down to a bar by the trail and eat.  We have a sandwich and a beer and the rain stops while we are eating.  We drive back to my van and it rains again but  it finishes as we begin to unload.  My father sorts out his gear and the Yough Shore Inn owner Lynn comes out with some letter for me.  I get her permission to camp there for the night and we thank her.  My father has al his gear sorted.  The bike and some other stuff will ride with me and the rest goes on the plane with him.  We hug good bye and he heads for the highway back to Washington D.C. Where he will catch a plane home tomorrow.  I am sorting gear and backing the van when about 10 minutes later he shows up again.  There is a tree down in a power line blocking the road out.  I get out my maps and find him a new route.  

It takes me about 45 minutes to sort everything and pack the van.  There is no sign of my father so I bike back down the bar for a couple of drink then ride back and it has gotten very cold!  No sign of my father  so I climb into BEYOND pull of the bed and my sleeping bag and crash hard.  The first part of my trip is over it. Has been great to ride with my father. I will miss him during the rest of my trip.  Have a safe smooth fight home Pop!  See you in July.